In the Name of Peace and Sanity
by Astrognash
Summary: On the last day of the Time War, the Doctor prepares to use the Moment and end it all, but not before visiting some old companions. This is the story of the lost Doctor. This is the story of the not Doctor. This is the story of the Doctor who broke his promise in the name of peace and sanity, but not in the name of the Doctor.
1. In the Citadel

There was silence as he walked through the halls of the highest building in the citadel: the grand palace of the High Council of the Time Lords.

Well, not quite silence. His boots made an ominous clicking noise against the ancient marble floor, but other than that, there we no sounds. Outside, the sky was burning, the orange turned nearly black with smoke. A million Dalek ships littered the ground, but more were on their way. The city was breached; the great dome was shattered in five different places and great swathes of the citadel had been leveled over the course of the war. As Frey set in the north, Pogar was just beginning to lighten the sky over Mount Perdition. The quiet was eerie, even preternatural.

* * *

In the innermost sanctum, they were preparing.

He walked through countless doors, down many flights of stairs. He hurried as well as he could in his old age, all too conscious of the approaching Dalek fleet and, worse, the Time Lords' plan. He passed not a soul on his way down; they were all gone. They would be voting now, he imagined. He had at best another six hours before it was too late. By the time he had reached the right level, Frey had set completely and Pogar was turning the southern sky a bright blue color. It was the first day of summer, and the daisies were just beginning to bloom on the slopes of the Never-Ending Mountains of Solace and Solitude. They were the daisiest daisies he'd ever seen.

At last, he came to the final door. It was unlike the others — imposing and gray, it bore no elegant writing to state its purpose. The door itself sufficed to say that you did not wish to venture beyond it.

A simple wave of the sonic screwdriver sent it creaking open. The inside was dark — the only light was a faint bioluminescence from the moss on the walls and that which streamed in now through the open doorway. But the man recognized the silhouette within nonetheless. She had changed her face, but it mattered not. He'd seen that silhouette countless times in the darkness, pressed his nose to her hair and inhaled in great, deep breaths. Her scent was still the same as the day he'd first met her. She was weeping, and he felt the pain in each of his hearts.

"Romanadvoratrelundar," he said. "Or do you still prefer Fred?"

She did not turn around to face him. She merely stayed as she was, simply stating, "Doctor."

There was a long and heavy silence. It weighed on the room like a guilty conscience.

Eventually, she continued.

"Did you come here to torment me again before you use it? Have you not already made enough of a mockery of everything we did and stood for?"

The Doctor stood there, motionless. In his hand was a gun. The gun. It was a simple little thing — small, black, fit perfectly in his hand. But then, the most horrible weapons were always the simplest ones.

"I do what I do without choice," he said simply.

Her shoulders slumped. "It doesn't have to come to this."

The Doctor was silent again for a very long time. Finally, he said, "Romana, come away with me. Live! You aren't like them, you're not— you haven't—"

Quite suddenly, she turned and stared into his face. Her eyes gleamed with a mad light. She was still in her ceremonial regalia — the High Council had not even bothered with removing her vestments before deposing her in favor of Rassilon, resurrected from his eternal sleep.

Her voice was as cold as ice.

"No, Doctor, but _you have_. What gives you the right? Simply pull the trigger and that's it. The Time Lords cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, all gone. And we will vanish into the darkest recesses of history. Thousands of generations will live in total ignorance, never even know the word 'Gallifrey'. What gives you the right?"

The Doctor's expression hardened, and he turned away. The click of his boots on the floor filled the silence again as he walked away from the room.

"I do this in the name of peace and sanity."

Before he turned the corner, the last words he heard from her were these.

"If you do this, then you will become like them. You'll be no better than the Time Lords."


	2. I Shall Come Back

David had died many years ago. Now, Susan was alone. All alone in the universe. So when the call was issued, she had returned home to the world of her birth. There, she had helped out with the war effort as any Time Lord was expected to do — she in particular had worked in intelligence, being one of the first of her kind to ever encounter the Daleks. Publicly, she was devoted to the war effort. But in private, she questioned the morality of the conflict. She questioned the methodology employed by the Time Lords against the Daleks. How many more billions would die and die and die again? How many trillions would cease to have ever been born? And somewhere out there, fighting in the thick of it, was her grandfather. The Doctor. She was sure he was out there, boldly thinking of a way to bring about an end to the violence through less violent means.

_One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine._

"Hello, Susan. Hello, my dear."

The teacup she had been holding fell to the floor and shattered. Slowly, she turned around. Her face lit up like the brightest star in the sky. He had changed his face again, but he was still _absolutely_ the same man. Despite the beard, the grizzled features, he was so very much still her Doctor.

"Oh, grandfather!" she cried, running to his open arms. He grinned the grin of a madman, a sad man, and embraced her warmly. In one hand, he held That Gun. That simple, simple, simple gun. In the other, he held a small but colorful card, impossibly complex patterns of circles printed upon its surface. The Great Key of Rassilon. Susan felt them both and gasped. She broke away from the hug, too quickly, staring up at him with questioning eyes. She trembled.

The Doctor looked back into those eyes. They were older, more mature than the last time he'd seen them. Her face was wrinkled and her hair was grey. But she was still unmistakably his granddaughter. His Susan. He moved to hug her again, but she did not hug back. There was no resistance — simply no response. She was trembling, and she had gone cold.

"Grandfather?" she asked hesitantly, "why do you have those?"

The Doctor sighed heavily and turned away from her, pocketing the key. He sat down and glanced out the window of her apartment, high up on the edge of the Citadel. The dome had been broken here, leaving crystal clear view towards Mount Perdition. Pogar was much higher in the sky now, casting brilliant light on the red grasses he'd run through in his youth, calling to the sky. He had such limited time. Funny, that. Nine hundred years of time and space and now he was running on a tight schedule.

He sighed again and ran his fingers over the smooth, sleek metal of the gun. He looked down at it, thinking of how blastedly simple it was. It was sleek. Elegant. Even sexy. The blackness of it was maddening. Inside the barrel was one shot. Just enough de-mat plasma for one shot. He knew that because he had built it that way. One shot, and then never again. That's what would separate him from them, what would make him different. Once and then he would stop. He would become his old self again, or maybe even die.

"The High Council," he said softly, "has decided to initiate the Ultimate Sanction. I do not know how they plan to go about creating the paradox, but I do know that this is their decision. Drax also tells me that, in order to escape the conseuqences of the Sanction, they plan to ascend."

The words hung in the air like so many cinderblocks. The Doctor gestured at the gun, and tears appeared on Susan's face.

"It's called," he continued, "The Moment."

Susan put a hand on the old man's shoulder and said, "Grandfather, you mustn't."

Raising his voice, straining not to choke up, he replied, "I have no choice! Do you think I would do this if I saw any other alternative, child?"

Softer, he said, "Susan. My Susan. Come with me. Run away again. Live!"

She shook her head very slowly.

"My grandfather would be able to think of something better. Something clever. You're not my grandfather. Not anymore. You're practically one of _them_."

The Doctor's eyes filled with grief.

"My dear child," he started to say.

"Do you remember Akhaten? Marinus? That affair with the Sensorites? All of those fantastic adventures! Please, I beg of you! _Come away with me!_ I cannot bear to lose you a second time."

Susan's gaze hardened and she spoke with an unshaken confidence that had been practically unknown when she was a young girl.

She said, "What of you, grandfather? Do you not remember the cavemen? Skaro? What of the Dalek Invasion? You told me to go forward in my beliefs — whatever happened to _yours_?"

The Doctor had well and truly begun to cry. Tears streamed down his face, blurring his vision. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, and he struggled to even get words out.

"Susan, please!"

"Goodbye, grandfather."

She pursed her lips, trying to stop her own tears, to be strong.

"I shall stay here, on Gallifrey; my childhood, my home."


	3. The One Who Broke the Promise

The Doctor glanced at the scanner again. Twenty million Dalek ships were now passing by Karn. They would be at Gallifrey in a mere matter of minutes. He sighed. The timing would have to be precise. It would have to be _so_ precise. The High Council would enact the Ultimate Sanction as soon as possible after the arrival of the Dalek armada. They would not do it a moment before; even they still held some glimmer of hope. Some fool's hope that perhaps this madness would be unnecessary. That perhaps this war might end. Perhaps the Daleks would turn back in the name of peace and sanity.

The Doctor had known the Daleks from the very beginning. He had known the Time Lords for far longer. Neither would turn back. There could be no peace now. Not as long as both races survived. And even if he could have taken out merely the Daleks, that would only spell an end to this conflict. There would come other enemies. Greater enemies, perhaps. The fate of the very cosmos hung in the balance, and it was up to the Doctor to end it here. To choose to be either a killer or a coward. But there was no real choice; this was not the time for cowardice. Not now, not anymore. He'd been a coward back on Skaro, with Sarah Jane. He'd been a coward every time he'd had the chance to destroy the bastards and then let them continue. He'd caused this. This was his fault, and he was going to clean it up.

He looked at the gun again, small thing that it was. The same size and shape as an earthly handgun. But, oh, it was so much bigger on the inside! It would be the end of this raging hellstorm. It was loaded, and he had the key in his jacket pocket. All it would take is one simple pull on the trigger and Gallifrey would cease to be, taking every last stinking Dalek with it. And who could know how much more it would take? The Doctor hadn't been able to test it out. Maybe it would take the TARDIS as well, or the universe. He could die; there was a very real possibility that he might die.

"I don't know that I would mind that," he said aloud, grimly.

A sudden look of curiosity upon his face, he slowly pointed the gun at the bottom of his chin. But of course, it wasn't even armed yet. He cast it aside in revulsion; it landed on the TARDIS floor with a clutter and lay there, a dead piece of metal. It seemed to stare at the Doctor, glaring at him. It was judging him. He felt the weight of his many years upon him, felt all his adventures pressing down on his mind at once.

_If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds, and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?_

He stumbled, falling to his knees. He stopped the fall with his hands, skinning them. They began to sting.

_There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought._

The Doctor coughed, looking at his hands. They glowed golden, but he strained and forced the glow to fade. "Not… yet…" he grunted.

_Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway._

The Doctor shook his head, pulling himself over towards the chair that stood in the corner of the room.

_Do I have the right?_

The Doctor cried out, falling over onto his side. "I… can't… do this… now!"

_When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal?_

The Doctor began to pull himself forward, finally reaching the chair.

_Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal._

The Doctor grunted, grasping at the seat with his hands, trying to find purchase.

"Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."

He pulled himself into the chair and fell into it, sweating and panting. He put his head in his hands, rubbing his temples.

"I must do this," he said. "I have no alternatives."

The time was approaching — the Daleks were now almost to Gallifrey. If he were to look outside now, he might even see their ships. Twenty million Dalek saucers, all reflecting the light of Gallifrey's twin suns, Frey and Pogar. It must make a spectacular sight. A terrifying sight. The Daleks were pure evil. They, above all else, had been The Great Enemy for the Doctor. But now? Now, they had proved to be the lesser threat. From whom had he run in the first place? The Time Lords themselves. And now, now the time had come to stop running, turn around, and shoot.

Sighing, the Doctor stood and walked over to the gun, picking it up. He walked over the console, almost mechanically, and began to flip switches. The TARDIS's exterior became invisible, unable to be detected by anyone or anything that didn't already know where to look for it. To be discovered now would be a disaster. It would be game over for the universe. The Time Lords would unleash the Ultimate Sanction and all creation would cease.

The Doctor pressed another button and the TARDIS doors swung open with a mechanical hum. Slowly, with painstakingly measured footsteps, he walked to the doorway and looked outside. Even though he was a seasoned traveler, he had to gasp at the sight.

Before him was Gallifrey, the shining world of the seven systems. Its burnt orange surface glowed in the sunlight like a jewel placed in the inky blackness of space. The planet was utterly majestic. The lakes and seas — few in number though they were — were a rich chocolate color, and the silver clouds shone and sparkled. A great red desert stretched across the land in the south of the continent of Wild Endeavour, and on the horizon of the southern continent Mount Cadon reached up in the heavens, capped in sparkling white snow. The transduction barrier was up, a faint glimmer in the atmosphere, but it would not stop the Daleks. The Doctor knew what he had to do.

The Dalek ships had slowed as they approached. Twenty million gleaming saucers ominously approached from the right side of the Doctor's field of vision. They surrounded the planet and began to descend. He could feel them begin to kill. In his mind, he could feel the lives of Time Lords being snuffed out, some in groups, others one by one. His head began to feel fuzzy, the way your leg does when you've sat on it for too long and then move.

The Doctor took the Great Key of Rassilon from his pocket.

He slid it into a small slot on the butt of the gun.

He leveled The Moment at Gallifrey and pulled the trigger. A small green beam briefly rushed from its barrel, and Gallifrey disappeared in a blinding flash of white light. There was not a sound to be heard that marked its end.

There was a sudden fuzzy emptiness in the Doctor's head as every Time Lord died at once. He was so used to being able to sense them, feel that they were alive… it was too much. He let go of the gun, which began to float out into the depths of space. Oh, well. It was useless now. The Doctor clutched at the sides of his head and fell over backwards, muttering inaudibly. He hit the floor with a thud, and began to regenerate.


End file.
